Tech

How a Paralyzed Man Moved His Fingers With His Mind

Ian Burkhart shares a smile with Chad Bouton, research leader from Battelle. Bouton and his team at Battelle pioneered the Neurobridge technology, working closely with doctors from The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, which allowed Burkhart to become the first patient ever to move his paralyzed hand with his own thoughts.

Ian Burkhart had barely finished his freshman year of college when he broke his neck.

Standing on top of a cliff in North Carolina's Outer Banks, which overlooked an orange sandbar jutting into the Atlantic Ocean, he dove hands-first toward the deceptively shallow water below.

"It happened so fast. There was this loud snap," he says.

The impact with the sandbar broke his vertebrae at what's called the C5 level, paralyzing his body from the elbows down. He spent the next four months recovering. Doctors told him he'd never be able to use his arms again.

That was four years ago. But on June 23, Ian made a fist with his right hand using only his brain waves, transferred through an innovative chip implanted in his head. In other words, he moved his paralyzed hand just by thinking about it.

The groundbreaking move is thanks to a microchip technology called Neurobridge, developed by researchers with medical nonprofit group Battelle. Neurobridge interprets brain signals as a way to "bypass" the duties of the spinal cord.

"This project dates back 10 years," Chad Bouton, Ph.D., the project leader for Neurobridge, tells Mashable. "Back then, we were originally learning how to decode brain signals in people who were paralyzed. We thought we could take it a step further — enough so that when a paralyzed person just thinks of a movement, we can send those brain signals into the actual muscles they're trying to move."

The technology is currently in a clinical trial period at Ohio State University, which began two years ago. Burkhart was the first patient to volunteer, and his ability to make a fist is the first success of the project so far. Researchers say it's only the beginning of a movement that could drastically improve the lives of paralyzed individuals across the world.

The chip is about the size of a contact lens. Surgeons embedded it in the back of Burkhart's skull, where it's able to "read" commands from the part of his brain that controls movement.

The initial surgery was a success. Aside from a few headaches, Burkhart recovered quickly. "They did a lot of testing for the next few weeks," he says. "They showed an animated hand on a computer screen next to me. I had to concentrate on doing that same movement, over and over and over again."

The day of the real test was, understandably, a surreal experience. A team of researchers and doctors crowded around Burkhart as he was hooked up to the equipment.

A wire connected the chip to a port, which synced with a cable to carry the information from the brain chip to a computer. There, an algorithm decoded the commands, which normally would have come from Burkhart's spinal cord. The computer connected to a sleeve of electrodes wrapped around Burkhart's arm, which was designed to move in sequence to stimulate muscle fibers and trigger whatever movements he thought of.

He took a deep breath and concentrated on his fingers moving. For the first time in four years, and against all plausible odds, they did. The entire process, from start to finish, lasted less than a tenth of a second.

"It wasn't the same sensation through my arm that I was expecting. It was almost like someone else was moving my fingers and I was just watching from afar," he says.

Dr. Ali Rezai, lead surgeon for the project, describes the day as extremely gratifying. And while there's still a lot more work to be done — he says his team is looking into a wireless method for syncing the chip to the computer — he wants to continue pushing the current chip's limits with Burkhart.

"Just imagine not being able to move your hand for four years, then suddenly you see it move, right before your eyes," Rezai says. "This is only the first step. Next, we'd like to see Ian — and others like him — be able to do even more sophisticated movements with their hands."

Mashable
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